WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is taking a calculated risk that embracing chosen leaders of Syria’s fragmented rebels will speed the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad, moving this week to recognize a slate of opposition figures whose pledges of democracy Washington can do little to enforce.

The administration is expected to announce the recognition of a relatively new Syrian opposition group Wednesday, Dec. 12, when American, European and Arab diplomats meet with its leaders in Morocco.

The action is part of fast-moving diplomacy to try to guard against chaos and collapse in Syria if rebel forces succeed in ousting or killing Assad. International efforts to support moderates as successors to Assad have taken on new urgency as rebels gain ground militarily.

In a further attempt to bolster moderates and marginalize extremists in the opposition, the State Department plans to designate a leading Syrian militant group as a terrorist organization. The designation, to be announced Tuesday, identifies Jabhat al-Nusra as a global terrorist organization and an affiliate of the group al-Qaida in Iraq.

The two steps are aimed at building a broader and more moderate coalition for a post-Assad Syria. But the Obama administration remains opposed to U.S. military intervention in Syria or providing arms directly to the rebels.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland would not give details Monday about what diplomatic steps will be taken in Marrakesh, Morocco. But department officials said privately that the United States will join a growing lineup of countries throwing their support behind the opposition group.

The recognition of the Syrian National Coalition is likely to stop short of naming the group as the legitimate ruler of Syria. That theoretically would give the group standing at the United Nations or elsewhere to ask for international military intervention. Instead, the State Department is likely to call the group the legitimate representative of the Syrian people.

The administration has been slow to confer formal diplomatic approval on the opposition coalition in order to extract as many promises as possible that it will include representatives of Syria’s minority groups, including Christians, Druze and Alawites.

“What we want to do is use recognition as a way to demonstrate to them that we mean it when we say they have to stay organized,” said a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal administration deliberations.

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